What's your fascination with genealogy and when you find important information how do you feel?

Question

What's your fascination with genealogy and when you find important information how do you feel?

Answer 1

It's crazy, when I was young, I HATED history.  Learning about my genealogy has made me appreciate not just my family's history, but ALL of history.  You can't do genealogy without appreciating the events surrounding  the people you are researching.

My fascination and frustration is that for every person you find, there are always TWO more to search for because everybody has two parents.  Breaking down a brick wall is a feeling like no other---especially when the brick wall has been standing for several years.

Answer 2

It's not so much the importance of the information as it is the method of finding it.  When you finally figure out a mis-spelling or a likely transcription error and you're able to hook generations together it's like like finding buried treasure.

That's one of the benefits of a group like this, people in it understand why we do it and understand the joy.  And think I'll remember that the next time I search...

Answer 3

Solving mysteries...my fascination.  How do I feel when I manage to solve one of the mysteries?  Exhilarated!

Answer 4

I've always liked learning about history, so the history of my own family is of greater interest still since it is more directly related to me.  Personally, being able to find new and interesting information feels great since I know that I am adding something to new to my family's record of our past.  If you have famous ancestors that had significant accomplishments it makes the other historical things that they affected more interesting too, which leads to a higher level of understanding in history as a whole plus greater interest.

Answer 5

Among my standing genealogy jokes- anyone who asks, is usually told that they MUST ask me 3 times.  The reason.. I don't want someone asking from politeness, because if they do that, I will talk them into the GROUND.  3 times is their opportunity to back out, if they want.

The fascination is that we ALL are connected to so many more persons than we are aware of.  My belief is  that finding those connections, changes our awareness and perception of ourselves.. AND we start finding that we have connections to MANY persons, beyond the simple genetic ones. I don't think you can do heavy genealogy without truly liking people.  Today, we all can find many valid reasons to dislike people. I'd rather find ways to like others.

I like to think that when I (help) find info, that hopefully it motivates others. I hope others go on to find more in genealogy than just names/date and connecting the dots.

Sheesh.  You had to get me started, didn't you??

Answer 6

For me, it started when I was pre-school.  My Mom told me stories about herself, my Dad, my Grandparents, their parents, and so on.  It's a case of trying to find out who I am.

I feel great, elated when I find any new information!  But I have hundreds of pages of research material, with names of thousands of direct ancestors, so it becomes more and more difficult to trace new material.